Voices: Post-Katrina New Orleans is so different yet the same
NEW ORLEANS — Each time I return to this beleaguered, alluring city, I expect to find her different.
You can't expect anyone to undergo a $10 billion face-lift, lose most of her closest friends, gain some new ones and not act a tad differently.
That was the concern of many residents and New Orleans observers in those early, mud-caked weeks in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina and the ensuing floods that destroyed 80% of this city: How will the massive rebuilding alter the character of one of the most idiosyncratic cities in the USA?
It didn't help that early planners suggested radical changes, such as turning several neighborhoods, including the Lower Ninth Ward, into green spaces to shrink the city size. That got residents riled up and sparked a groundswell of civic activity unseen here in decades, if ever. These tensions were clear in my mind when USA TODAY moved me here in 2007 to witness and write about one of the largest rebuilding efforts in modern U.S. history.
Over the next six years, I witnessed a city in convulsion: civic leaders challenging development, developers decrying city ineptitude, city leaders decrying federal incompetence. All the while, residents — the ingredient that truly makes this place special — struggled to rebuild or return to the city.
Change didn't hit like a whipsaw. It came in slow drips, like a leak in a levee. You saw it in subtle ways, such as the newly arrived residents who complained about second-line parades, a street tradition that stretches back decades, or the way rents shot up 30% in the years after Katrina. It also arrived abruptly, when the 37 acres of Mid-City homes and buildings — some of them historic — were razed or relocated to make way for the new $1.1 billion University Medical Center.
Some locals watched in horror, warning all the change would mar New Orleans forever. Others embraced it, particularly applauding the stream of newcomers that descended into the city post-Katrina, most armed with four-year diplomas and fresh ideas.
As one lifer explained to me, New Orleans has been forged over the centuries through a series of jarring changes that continually spin it in new, interesting directions, from its colonial governance by the French, then the Spanish, then back to the French (who held it briefly before selling it to the United States), to the influx of 10,000 refugees from Saint-Domingue (modern-day Haiti) in the early 1800s who fled the Haitian revolution, to the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. It's been a city roiled by one dramatic event after another.
Then, Katrina.
Rebuilding New Orleans was a daunting challenge from the start but also an opportunity to improve on a city that, before the first floods hit, had among the highest poverty levels and crime rates in the nation and whose public schools were among the country's worst. (They've improved on two of those three; violent crime remains an issue.)
This city's metamorphosis won't stop after Katrina's 10-year anniversary, and its final portrait won't be unveiled for years to come. You can catch only glimpses of the changes here and there, if you're lucky.
On my most recent trip, I strolled through the St. Roch Market, a historic 19th-century structure that sat vacant for a decade and is now home to a dozen high-end eateries. I counted at least six new hipster coffeehouses and visited new, stylish restaurants that had nothing to do with red beans and rice. I saw massive construction sites where some of the city's public housing once stood.
I also caught Jon Cleary and his piano wizardry at his usual Thursday night perch at d.b.a. I was chatted up by baristas and shopkeepers who didn't know me and didn't care. I lunched at Drago's, where the char-grilled oysters are still melt-in-your-mouth good.
After careful examination and dutiful research, my conclusion is this: New Orleans is a radically different city than it was 10 years ago. And utterly, unflinchingly the same.
Former USA TODAY New Orleans correspondent Jervis is based in Austin